Anti-Poverty Strategies
The National and European plans to tackle poverty and social exclusion serve as the guiding policy frameworks for eradicating poverty in Ireland and the EU. The terminology, structures and implementation of the plans can be confusing at first, but this section aims to make the process understandable and easy to engage with.
Government action against poverty is brought together by two strategies with similar targets and confusingly similar names. One of the plans is linked to the EU Inclusion Strategy, while the other is a National Action Plan. While the plans work in different ways, there is a good degree of inter-connectivity and they use broadly similar policy tools and engage with similar targets.
EU Social Inclusion Strategy (the National Action Plan on Social Inclusion)
The National Action Plan on Social Inclusion is drawn up every 2 or 3 years as part of the ten-year European Union strategy (the ‘Social Inclusion Strategy’) to “make a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty” by 2010. Up until 2006 these were called the National Action Plans against Poverty and Social Exclusion. Since 2006, the plans have become a distinct chapter within the National Reports on Strategies for Social Protection and Social Inclusion (which also include chapters on Pensions, Health and Long-Term Care).
The Second National Action Plans for Social Inclusion (NAP Inclusion), for 2003 to 2005 (now extended to 2006) were published in the (then) 15 European Union (EU) member states, including Ireland, in August 2003.
The Plans are the centre-piece of the EU Social Inclusion Strategy. This is a key part of the EU’s main economic and social plan, the ‘Lisbon Strategy’, which includes the commitment to “make a decisive impact on poverty and social exclusion”
Because social policy is still mainly the responsibility of member states, rather than the EU, the Social Inclusion Strategy is held together by an “Open Method of Coordination” (soft law targets) involving:
- Common objectives agreed at EU level
- Two yearly national action plans in each country to implement these objectives
- A Joint Report on Social Inclusion (also called the Joint Inclusion Report or JIR) which analyses the plans from the 15 member states by theme and by country
- A system of peer review, involving scrutiny of the national plans and exchange of examples of good practice
- Development of a number of common indicators.
National Action Plan for Social Inclusion
The national plan was started in 1997 under the title of National Anti-Poverty Strategy (NAPS) which aimed to “reduce, or ideally eliminate (consistent) poverty” by 2007. This was replaced in 2007 by the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016 (NAP Incl. 2007-2016) which has the overall goal ‘to reduce the number of those experiencing consistent poverty to between 2% and 4% by 2012, with the aim of eliminating consistent poverty by 2016.
According to the Office for Social Inclusion, “The National Anti-Poverty Strategy (NAPS), originally published in 1997, is a ten-year Government plan to reduce poverty. The current plan, ‘Building an Inclusive Society’ was launched in 2002 and is a revision of the 1997 plan.”
The NAPS sets:
- An objective of reducing and ideally eliminating poverty in Ireland
- A specific target of eliminating long term unemployment
- A new benchmark for the lowest social welfare payments of Euro 150 by 2007 (in 2002 terms
When were the plans adopted?
1998 National Anti-Poverty Strategy (NAPS)
2001 First NAP Inclusion, 2001-2003
2002 NAPS review
2003 Second NAP Inclusion, 2003-2005/6
(2005) NAP Inclusion Implementation Report)
2006 Third NAP Inclusion, 2006-2008
2007 National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016
2008 Fourth NAP Inclusion, 2008-2010
- Common objectives agreed at EU level
- Two yearly national action plans in each country to implement these objectives
- A Joint Report on Social Inclusion (also called the Joint Inclusion Report or JIR) which analyses the plans from the 15 member states by theme and by country
- A system of peer review, involving scrutiny of the national plans and exchange of examples of good practice
- Development of a number of common indicators.
Resources
If you want a more detailed explanation on the NAPs Process check the following:
- Understanding the EU Social Inclusion Strategy, a basic but thorough introduction
- Our page on the “Open Method of Coordination”, the method which is used to hold together the Social inclusion Strategy and at least 12 other processes, and which has spawned a whole publishing industry in its own right
- EAPN (Europe) news page on social inclusion
- The Office for Social Inclusion, the main government agency responsible for implementing the Irish Plan. This site includes excellent explanations, reports and guides to the main documents on the NAPS and NAP Inclusion
- Combat Poverty Agency which is responsible for advising the Irish Government and includes a very comprehensive and clear range of papers on the strategies
- The European Commission website takes a detailed look at the Strategy, with links to the main documents
